Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done

All along I've taken pride that I'm an "ideas guy". I am not an "implementer". This book made it abundantly clear that if there were an extra Beautitude in the bible it would be: "the implementers shall inherit the Earth".

It's not enough to be think strategically and fashion an exception strategic plan. A plan is only as good as it execution. So often leaders are changed out under the guise of having a poor strategy. When in actuality it was poor execution that doomed them to failure.

The book made the case for clearly aligning your People strategy, Strategic plan and Operational plan together. Through the skill of having the courage to practice the art of asking the right questions, a leader can keep those three aligned and moving in the right direction.

It's the leader's job first and foremost to ensure the overall plan is executed. This isn't something that can be delegated. The leader has to be the one holding people accountable for doing their job, while not intervening too much and doing their job for them. Leaders must be hands on.

There wasn't a section on "how to ask effective questions". This would be a wonderful next step as it can doom a leader who might be all about following up and accountability, but just might not know the right questions to ask.

Before reading this book I thought the key thing was having an "impact". In fact, that was my word for 2016. Reading this book literally slapped that thought out of my head and replaced it with "execution". You can't have an impact on anyone or anything if you can't execute.

The thing that hit me hardest about this book is that I saw myself in it. I can look back in my career and endeavors and see a string of poor execution. Areas where I failed to ask the right questions, failed to follow-up, failed to focus (follow one course until success). It was humbling to say the least.

I no longer think of myself as just an ideas guy. I am an executor - first and foremost. I am leaving a trail of results in my wake as proof that I have impacted the world in a positive way.

As a result of reading this book I am beginning to ask questions of how certain things will impact other things. What will be the ramifications if this is (or isn't done)? What is the effect of failure on this process? Who else is doing this better than we are?

This book will definitely be read/listened to once a month for the next six months. I'll even buy the hard cover for the library.

"Исполнение. Система достижения целей" очень хорошая, основательная и тщательно проработанная книга в которой приведено множество принципов, моделей и способов управления персоналом с целью незамедлительной, а главное качественной реализации бизнес-панов а также целей предприятий.

Авторы не просто люди оторванные от действительности теоретики, а люди которые достигли высоких позиций в корпоративном секторе и весьма успешные личности. И возможно поэтому книга у них получилась очень насыщенная и ценная, а её рецепты готовы для применения во многих видах бизнеса.

Основная ценность книги в том, что авторами изучены проблемы провалов хороших стратегий компаний с идеальными бизнес-планами даже в руках сильных лидеров вместе с отличными командами управленцев. Да, и такое бывает! Боссиди и Чаран глубоко исследовали проблемы почему такое происходит в мире бизнеса. Они нашли множество причин этих проблем, и конечно же ими приведено большое количество советов и инструкций к применению.

Книга получилась на вес золота!

This book is valuable to individuals and is even more value to senior leadership in organizations. I enjoyed considering the key difference between what behaviors successful companies exude. Also, I strongly agree that a culture of execution normally separates industry leaders from other companies. Here is my personal review of this book.

“Execution is a systematic process of rigorously discussing hows and whats, questioning, tenaciously following through, and ensuring accountability. It includes making assumptions about the business environment, assessing the organizations capabilities, linking strategy to operations and the people who are going to implement the strategy, synchronizing those people and their various disciplines, and linking rewards to outcomes. It also includes mechanisms for changing assumptions as the environment changes and upgrading the company’s capabilities to meet challenges of ambitions strategy. In its most fundamental sense, execution is a systematic way of exposing reality and acting on it. Many companies don’t face reality well.” (Pg. 22- paragraphs 1 & 2)

Too many people like to dwell on pie in the sky planning. An person or organization must seriously expose and address what can and should be done.

The story of EDS and its CEO Dick Brown provided valuable insight into effective hard working execution driven leadership. It also shows an effective attempt at leadership with transparency. Pgs. 46-54

Three Building Blocks of Execution
I.tLeaders 7 Essential Behaviors
1.tKnow your people and your business
2.tInsist on realism
3.tSet clear goals and priorities
4.tFollow through
5.tReward the doers
6.tExpand peoples capabilities
7.tKnow yourself

In Chapter 4 – Building Block 2: Creating the Framework for Cultural Change

“The basic premise is simple: cultural change gets real when your aim is execution. You don’t need a complex theory or employee survey to use this framework. You need to change people’s behavior so that they produce results. First you tell people clearly what results your looking for. Then you discuss how to get those results, as a key element of the coaching process. Then come up short, you provide additional coaching, withdraw rewards, give them other jobs, or let them go. When you do these things, you create a culture of getting things done (1st paragraph – pg. 86).”

“There’s a saying we recently heard: We don’t think ourselves into a new way of acting, we act ourselves into new ways of thinking (1st paragraph – pg. 89).”

“The beliefs that influence behaviors are more likely to need changing (3rd paragraph – pg. 89).”

When being a realist when dealing with issues of a business requires what the authors call “Emotional Fortitude” which means to be secure and strong enough to listen to negative and be forceful with people. This emotional fortitude is mentioned through-out the book.

I think the importance of robust dialogue section in this book is a key component to an individual that executes. “You cannot have an execution culture without robust dialogue—one that brings reality to the surface through openness, candor, and formality. Robust dialogue makes an organization effective in gathering information, understanding the information, and reshaping it to produce decisions. It fosters creativity—most innovations and inventions are incubated through robust dialogue. Ultimately, it creates more competitive advantage and shareholder value (pg. 102).”

“Informality is critical to candor. … Formality suppresses dialogue; informality encourages it. Formal conversations and presentations leave little room for debate. … Informality gets the truth out. It surfaces out-of-the-box ideas – the ideas that may seem absurd at first hearing but that create break throughs. … Finally, robust dialogue ends with closure. At the end of the meeting, people agree about what each person has to do and when. They’ve committed to it in an open forum; they are accountable for the outcomes. … The reason most companies don’t face reality very well is that their dialogues are ineffective (Pg. 103 – paragraphs 2 – 3).”

WHAT KIND OF PEOPLE ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?
“The person who is a little less conceptual but is absolutely determined to succeed will usually find the right people and get them together to achieve objectives. I’m not knocking education or looking for dumb people. But if you have to choose between someone with a staggering IQ and an elite education who’s gliding along, and someone with a lower IQ but who is absolutely determined to succeed, you’ll always do better with the second person (paragraph 3 – Pg. 119).”

“You’re searching for people with an enormous drive for people with an enormous drive for winning. These people get satisfaction from getting things done (pg. 120).”

He (speaking of an effective CEO) never finishes a conversation without summarizing the actions to be taken (1st Paragraph – pg. 123 – last sentence).”

The bottom of page 123 explained that good leaders are decisive on tough issues. Decisiveness is the ability to make difficult decisions swiftly and well, and act on them. “Organizations are filled with people who dance around decisions without ever making them. Some leaders simply do not have the emotional fortitude to confront the tough ones. When they don’t, everybody in the business knows they are wavering, procrastinating, and avoiding reality (last paragraph – pg. 123).”

“Getting things done through others is a fundamental leadership skill (pg. 125).” After reading this section I also think a person needs a good balance between hands-off delegation and micromanagement by smothering others.

“Never finish a meeting without clarifying what the follow-through will be, who will do it, when and how they will do it, what resources they will use, and how and when the next review will take place and with whom. And never launch an initiative unless you’re personally committed to it and prepared to see it through until it’s embedded in the DNA of an organization (1st paragraph – pg. 128).”

HOW TO GET THE RIGHT PEOPLE IN THE RIGHT JOBS
“The first things I look for are energy and enthusiasm for execution. Does the candidate get excited by doing things, as opposed to talking about them? Has she brought that energy to everything she’s done, starting with school? I don’t care if she went to Princeton or to Poduck State; how well did she do there? Is here life full of achievement and accomplishment (3rd Paragraph – Pg. 129).”

Chapter 6 – The People Process: Making the Link with strategy and Operations

“To put it simply and starkly: If you don’t get the people process right, you will never fulfill the potential of your business. (Last sentence – 1st paragraph – pg. 141).”

“One of the biggest shortcomings of the traditional people process is that it’s backward-looking, focused on evaluating the jobs people are doing today. Far more important is whether the individuals can handle the jobs of tomorrow (Last paragraph on Pg. 141).”

Chapter 7 – The Strategy Process: Making the Link with People and Operations

“The basic goal of any strategy is simple enough; to win the customer’s preference and create a sustainable competitive advantage, while leaving sufficient money on the table for share holders (1st Sentence – Pg. 178).”

“Few understand that a good strategic planning process also requires the utmost attention to the hows of executing the strategy (1st Sentence of 2nd Paragraph – Pg. 178).”

“A business unit strategy should be less than fifty pages long and should be easy to understand. Its essence should be describable in one page in terms of its building blocks, …If you can’t describe your strategy in twenty minutes, simply and in plain language, you haven’t got a plan. … Every strategy boils down to a few simple building blocks.

A good strategic plan is a set of directions you want to take. It’s a road-map, lightly filled in, so that it gives you plenty of room to maneuver. You get specific when you’re deciding the action part of the plan, where you link it with people and operations (Paragraph 1 & 2 – Pg. 185).”

The rest of the book was insightful too. These are only a few recorded comments. I enjoyed stories about good leadership who executed by hard work, follow-up, and emotional fortitude, using open dialogue and allowing people to take ownership and build themselves by accomplishing specific executable goals. I desire a personal culture or execution and therefore will continue to reference this book. Personally, I need to be real about my situation, set clear strategic, operational goals and be held accountable for my progress.

Recommendation: Buy this bookt

My friend Darren pointed out that I had had a book on my list about getting things done for months. Well, I guess I did not get this one done. It remains on my table at work. Hopefully, I'll get back to it soon. In the meantime, I'm giving it only 1 star. If it was better, I probably would pick it back up to read.

I think this is one of the most influential business books published in recent years. I think this book will be of great value to any decision-maker in any organization because the authors focus relentlessly on how some decision-makers get results and why most others don't. The basic principles of the book are simple: identify the best people, give them clear objectives, challenge them to improve and check up on them frequently.

This is one of the better leadership/management books that I have come across. Like most books of the genre, it stresses goals and visions as essential to moving forward, but this book takes it in a different direction: at some point, you need to stop dreaming and start doing something.

Execution stresses a more hands-on approach to leadership. It's not enough to simply sit back and be the idea guy hoping that someone else is taking care of the work. The book is generally written for the CEO level, but the majority of the lessons are transferable to any level of leadership/management.

Has a lot of great anecdotes about executive vice president A challenging mid-level leaders B and C to achieve margin initiative 1 by timeline 1998 through upgrades to technology, implementation of operations efficiencies, and negotiation with suppliers X and Y to avoid competitor D gaining market share. If that inspires you then you’ll probably enjoy the book much more than I did; if not then congratulations, settle for reading the back cover and save 8 hours.

This was one of my least favorite business books. Obviously, the author cares a great deal about emphasizing "execution", and he gave many examples of leaders who are/were skilled executors. But he gave no concrete steps to guide the reader to how to execute in the manner of the example leaders. The book left me uninspired.